Researcher Mai Van Lang: I hope for more supportive policies to be designed to safeguard folk music

Question: Can you tell us why you developed a passion for traditional music? Composer Mai Van Lang: I spent my childhood with my maternal grandmother, who could sing many folk songs, poetry and proverbs by heart, as well as numerous plays of cheo (traditional opera) and cai luong (reformed theatre). When I was 5, I heard my grandmother singing xam (ballads once sung by wandering blind musicians), I found it exceptionally beautiful. Folk music has been in my blood from that time. You have spent years collecting ancient lyrics of folk singing, do you have any difficulty in this work? I have faced a lot of difficulties, but the most challenging aspect is that folk tunes are dispersed across different regions throughout the country, whilst veteran artisans and practitioners are becoming older and their memories decline with age. These factors require a lot of time and patience from collectors. You have rewritten new lyrics for folk songs, with hundreds of them having been recorded and broadcast on the Voice of Vietnam. Do you have any criteria for this work? It is undeniable that folk songs have beautiful lyrics. However, to make them survive and become more popular in modern life, they should be “coated” with a new appearance. For instance, there are folk songs about rituals, customs, ceremonies and community activities, which are no longer practiced nowadays. So, how to maintain the archaism of folk songs and folk music while blending them with a new fresh breath, thus making them… [Read full story]